“I understand you want to talk to me, urgently, Mr. Bogosian? This is Judith Winston.”
“Where can we meet?”
She sighed. “Whoa, hold your horses! I’m… it’s been a very long day, and I’m already in my hotel room…”
“It’s not quite eight and I’m sure there’s a bar.”
“Yes… of course there’s a bar. There’s always a bar, and I just left it, but…”
“Please tell me the hotel and I’ll meet you in that bar in fifteen minutes.”
“Seriously? I have no idea who you really are or why you’re even calling.”
“Google me. I absolutely promise you it’s vitally important, what I have to tell you.”
“Okay, but… is this really necessary? Tonight, I mean? Can’t you tell me over the phone?”
“Yes, it’s very necessary and no, I need to talk to you in person, and tomorrow my story will be front page above the fold and I would feel very bad if you were blindsided.”
“Front page, huh? And this concerns Captain Mitchell’s prosecution?”
“Materially.”
“You understand I will not be giving you any information or interviews on or off the record?”
“Absolutely. I accept that ground rule. I’m the one doing the talking.”
“Alright, Mr. Bogosian. Hyatt Regency bar, then. Fifteen minutes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Present Day — September 13 — Day Six of the trial
Courtroom 5D, Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse, Denver
“Your Honor, I request a sidebar,” Judith announced.
“Approach!” Judge Gonzales said with a weary wave to both lawyers.
“I have an emergency addition to the defense’s witness list,” she offered.
Judith watched Judge Gonzales take the information in stride but instantly look at Grant Richardson, who looked at her incredulously.
“Your Honor, I object. We haven’t been notified of any motion for inclusion of a new witness. The state is surprised.”
“Of course, you’re surprised, Counsellor,” Judith said, smiling as sardonically as she could manage. “So are we. That’s the very nature of a material witness who emerges at the last minute about whom nothing was known previously.”
As she expected, Richardson’s argument was heated and built around the concept that even if the offered witness confirmed the existence of a car on the runway, that had nothing to do with the primary question of whether or not Captain Mitchell knowingly caused the death of anyone.
“Judge,” Judith began, “if there was no vehicle on Runway Three Six Right , then the fact that Regal Flight Twelve crashed does not disprove prosecution’s contention that whether the defendant chose Runway Seven or Runway Three Six or any other, it was his refusal to slow down that in essence constituted knowingly causing a death. In other words, there was no runway he could have landed on at two hundred thirty knots without killing someone. But, if he could have landed safely on Three Six Right even at two hundred thirty knots, that means his ultimate decision, the one on which he acted, did NOT constitute knowingly causing a death. Therefore, the presence or absence of the alleged vehicle is material and incredibly important in determining whether a safe landing could have been made if no car was there. Therefore, this witness must be heard.”
From there, the ruling for inclusion was all but unavoidable for Gonzales, especially since Judith’s hands were clean regarding any prior knowledge of a witness named William Jantzen.
It had been obvious to Judith that Marty would be concerned to the point of near panic over why she had broken with the usual pattern and, instead of briefing him and the team, had closeted herself with someone Marty had never seen before. There had been no time for Judith to explain, and he had the distinct impression that she had intentionally engineered it that way.
Now as the unfamiliar name of the new witness was called, a slim, sandy haired young man in his twenties, wearing a slightly bushy mustache, walked unsteadily down the aisle, his features and his color ashen, his shoulders stooped as if he was carrying an unseen burden. He was wearing an open-collar shirt over black slacks, and Marty watched him in deep puzzlement.
When the witness was sworn and all the usual opening questions of name and employment had been completed, Judith walked toward the witness box.
“Mr. Jantzen, what exactly is your job at Denver International Airport?”
“I… ah… I work in the central control building and coordinate the various
ground equipment.” His somewhat nasal voice betrayed a southern origin.
“Does that include snow plows during winter storms?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Were you on duty the night of January 21st, when the crash of Regal Air 12 occurred?”
“I was on that night, but… I finished my shift and was relieved before the accident.”
“How long before the accident?”
“Ah… about thirty minutes.”
“What was the situation from your work perspective that night?”
“Well, we had had everyone deployed trying to keep the airport open, and we were slowly being overwhelmed, so I was constantly moving the plows and supervisors around. It was decided we would abandon everything except Runway Seven, but we had to leave the last two thousand feet unplowed because we didn’t have time with the inbound emergency to do the whole thing one last time.”
“So, you removed the plows from Runway Seven?”
“I was gone by then.”
“Please explain what you mean by ‘gone,’” Judith asked.
Jantzen looked nervously around the room, catching the judge’s eye as well, as he sat fidgeting in the witness chair, leaning over the microphone and looking at it repeatedly as if worried it might bite him.
“Well, my supervisor told me the battle was over and I should clock out and get home if I could. You know, because the snow was just incredible. So I got my parka and scraped the snow drift off my car, and… it was so beautiful out there, and frankly I was so exhausted, I just wanted to sit and veg for a while, you know?”
“What did you do then?” she asked.
“Well… I… you gotta understand, the entire airport other than Runway Seven was closed down. They had turned the lights off and the instrument landing system off on Runway Three Six Right, and there was too much ramp traffic around where our parking lot is, so… so I drove over to find a safe place to just park and watch the snow.”
“Where, exactly, did you go?”
“I have a little GPS with the runway diagram? Since you couldn’t tell any more where the concrete and grass come together, I just followed the gps out on one of the closed runways, because it was wide enough I wasn’t running the risk of driving off the side, you know?”
“Mr. Jantzen, did you have an aviation frequency radio in your car, or anything with which to monitor the control tower or talk to them?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Was it required that anyone driving on the runways or taxiways be in two-way radio contact with the tower?”
Jantzen looked down, nodding, his head continuing to bob as he looked up at her.
“Yes, ma’am, when the airport runways and such are open. I mean, they were closed, so I didn’t think I needed to be in contact.”
“Are you authorized to drive airport equipment on the airside areas with a radio?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m trained.”
“But not in your personal vehicle?”
“No, because I don’t have a radio, but, see, there’s no way I would ever have driven my car over there if the airport had been operating.”